When I think of Thanksgiving, I see the children’s table.
I remember asking how could we graduate to the adult table? There were a fixed number of seats at that dining table! So unless someone died, or heavens forbid, didn’t come home for Thanksgiving…
I’m an only child. We celebrated Thanksgiving, as well as Christmas and Easter, with my mother’s older sister’s family, on a farm near where she grew up. Southwest Georgia weather at that time was still shirtsleeves. Heck, Christmas was sometimes shirtsleeves!
Momma worked 8-5, M-F, so we didn’t head south until late on Wednesday. Daddy would drive and, eventually, light up a cigarette. From the backseat, where I was trying to nap, I’d recite, “crack the window, please, daddy” like clockwork. I’ve been sensitive to cigarette smoke my entire life. Sometimes I think it’s worse now because it’s so rare to run into a smoker or a room sullied with smoke. Well, except 20+ feet outside a grocery store entry. I hold my breath as I walk past.
We’d cross the single-lane bridge that always gave me the heebie-jeebies. It was one of those bridges where you can’t see the landing on the other side: an arch bridge. Sometimes you’d meet a car mid-span. The person furtherest along got to go forward; the other car backed up. If there was a virtual argument, the larger vehicle won. At night you could see the headlights approaching before you made the decision to try to cross, but I was never adept at guessing how far away they might be.
That bridge was significant for reasons other than fear. It marked the halfway point of the hour long trip. From that point forward, we were on country roads, not a state highway.
Thursday morning, momma and Aunt Margaret would be hard at work in the kitchen. First, a full southern breakfast: ham and sausage, eggs, grits, toast. Then my cousin Lynn and I had clean up duty (she usually washed) before we were marched out of the eat-in kitchen.
Then the serious business of Thanksgiving dinner, which was served early afternoon, began. Ellen and Margaret had their specialties, as most of us do for holiday meals. Ellen made the dressing; Margaret roasted the turkey. Cranberry sauce: jellied from a can. Either Lynn or I would do that duty. Green bean casserole: Margaret. Sweet potatoes: Ellen. Pecan pie: Ellen. Pumpkin pie: Margaret. Caramel cake: Ellen.
It’s probably not a surprise, then, that my contributions to friends-giving meals for 20+ years has been southern cornbread dressing! Yes, today, too!
The menfolk were outside, doing something. They might even go quail hunting while they waited! But there was no kitchen duty for them. Holiday cooking was women’s work. Heck, most cooking (and cleaning) was women’s work. The exception Of Course, was grilled meats. That was manly.
Once dinner began, I remember Lynn’s three older siblings sitting at the adults table. The kids table was the two of us and my second cousins. That was fine, really. We could be as silly as we wanted to be!
I never knew what the adults talked about. Hunting? How the cattle were doing? Farm prices? Gossip? Politics?
Eventually the adult table fractured. Although Lynn’s older brother lived on the farm, her other brother lived near Atlanta. After his divorce, I don’t remember seeing him very often. Her older sister married and Thanksgivinged with her husband. Until they divorced. But Lynn and I, we stayed at the kids table, even when I came home from graduate school with my boyfriend in tow.
Holidays aren’t the only time I think of momma and daddy, but the holidays do bring up … emotions. Older me wants to scold younger me, sometimes. Not grateful enough. Not thoughtful enough. Not truly appreciative of the sacrifices my parents made so I could go away to college. And then I figuratively ran away from home, first to Virginia, then Pennsylvania, then Washington state.
But I would always go home at Thanksgiving. Until I didn’t.
Today I’ll tip my glass of champagne in honor of Ellen and Earl, as I eat her dressing and her caramel cake.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com